A detonator is a device used to trigger an explosive device. Detonators can be chemically, mechanically, or electrically initiated. There are three categories of electrical detonators: instantaneous electrical detonators (IED), short period delay detonators (SPD) and long period delay detonators (LPD). Delays in SPDs are measured in milliseconds, and delays in LPDs are measured in seconds. These conventional electrical detonators often use switches that activate using a surface breakdown. For example, some conventional switches use a thin/thick dielectric film between two electrodes that needs to be broken down by a high voltage. However, these conventional switches often suffer from switch to switch jitter behavior. In some situations, two switches operating at similar voltage amplitudes and with similar voltage pulse rise times, can often have their dielectric gap breakdown occur with different timing. For example, one switch can operate 100 ns after initial voltage application but a second switch can operate after 250 ns after the initial voltage application. This switch jitter behavior often results from variations of thickness of dielectric material of the dielectric gap which can result in variations of the time required for the voltage application to break through the dielectric gap.